Fiji

August 6, 2007 Levuka, Ovalatau

In the morning I helped repair the main sail and then we put that back up on the boom. After that bit of fun I joined the hull scraping team for some diving under the bottom of the boat. I scraped for a half hour and then my ears started bothering me, I think its just the going up and down under there, or the crap I’m scraping off that gets in my ears. I put my time in though. In the afternoon I had a chance to go into town, so I jumped on that offer…getting pretty bored doing shit jobs, waiting around for the compressor part. In town I did a little shopping and some internet in the sleepy little town, but most importantly I had an amazing burger at this restaurant. Not sure if it was my longing for a burger or the burger was actually really tasty, but in any way (starting to say “in any way,” picked it up from Fred)…I loved it. So good with fries, salad, a beer, and coconut cake with ice cream for dessert. I couldn’t ask for anything else! Yumm!

August 7, 2007 Still freakin Levuka

So no compressor part this morning, surprise..surprise. Carol is utterly pissed and frazzled more than usual, as it is her job to get the compressor back up and running. I don’t mind Levuka when I can get into town and walk around a bit, but being stuck on the boat in the heat doing stupid little keep-you-busy jobs pretty much sucks. In the morning I again helped with the sails. This time folding our biggest jib, which was a pretty big job. For the rest of the morning I just hid away in the library studying inverts. Snorkeled the reef by the pass scooping out inverts. Saw a big octopus just hanging out watching us, an eel, and lots of other small inverts. Cleanup and relaxing the rest of the afternoon, and dinner with a film tonight. We’re really hoping to get the part for the compressor in the morning tomorrow and leave in the morning-arrive in Gau in the afternoon…ya I doubt it! We’ll see though. It sounds like the officers are pretty pissed, b/c we are going to be crunched for time with the science study in Gau now. Oh well…you have to remember, we are on Fiji time people.

August 12, 2007 Gau, Fiji

So…I’m skipping a few days, well almost a week really. We spent a total of 10 days in Levuka waiting for the compressor part, that did finally come and is now working great. Oh I found out that Kitty got a B.S. in biology from Stanford and was valedictorian and played discus to get in there out of high school. Pretty crazy that she’s been living on a boat with PCRF for 3 yrs now.

Anyways, on our last night in Levuka, Zac and Fred cooked a computer geek themed dinner with a reading about this new computer game Second Life. We ate delicious cheeseburgers, fries, onion rings, and chocolate ice cream…such a good dinner! Well after dinner we started to discuss the reading, and Agate asks Zac, if he’s ever played this computer game before. Before he even has a chance to answer Carol snaps at her, “Agate we really don’t interrupt on Thursday nights, the form of the dinner is to go around and let everyone express their own point of view!” So rude! In front of everyone, def killed the mood. I was pissed. Well that’s when the shit hit the fan, we all went around and said what we thought, and then Michel doesn’t even mention the article, he’s just pissed at how much of a bitch Carol is. I won’t go into too much detail, but over the night and after the next night’s dinner we all got down and dirty. We talked about the “them and us” issue, how we were the puppets and hard laborers when Gaie and Laser had all these influential people from PCRF visit the ship (the past few weeks), Matt told Heather she doesn’t say please and thank you, and he also told Carol she is just rude to people. Agate and I explained situations about Heather and Carol, and Carol apologized, knows she does it, and says it’s in her nature from growing up without people out on a farm. Heather wasn’t very apologetic, and just kind of brushed it off. My point that I urged to Carol and Heather was to offer some constructive criticism when we are doing something wrong. Don’t just blow up at people and ruin their day. For example, tell them they are doing a good job, but it would be better if it was done this way. And also I made the point that if the officers want feedback when “we” think something is wrong or don’t think it’s a good idea, they should at least show us some respect and consider what we’re saying and not blow us off completely if they disagree with what we’re saying. Not sure if that makes sense, but it did when I explained it. I definitely feel like some of the air has been cleared, and maybe it’s less “us and them.” Glad that the shit finally hit the fan though, because life was just getting so tense.

We are now in Gau, diving all the time…which is nice. To eclipse from the last paragraph, Carol has been better and Heather is still pretty stressed out and bossy. We are at a new spot in now, on a mooring buoy off a village. Haven’t had a chance to go in and see the village, and not sure that I will. It’s strictly diving, diving, diving here on this end of Gau. We are anchored in a cove in between the marine protected area (MPA) and the non-MPA, so we’re doing science studies to see if the health of the corals in both areas differs. On our first day of science diving, I did two dives back to back. All together in just one day we had categorized the health of 1000 coral colonies in 4 dives. On my two dives, first I dove more right off the village and near a river mouth, so the first dive was really silty, dirty water, and not too much coral. The second dive around the corner from the village, was beautiful, not sure if that was the MPA or not, but lots of healthy corals, fish, and large spur and groove formations that were covered with corals.

I cooked dinner last night, by myself (well Rachel and Agate helped) and I cooked pork with the chicken wing sauce recipe, baked squash, and my oriental coleslaw (with the ramen). The coleslaw was a hit, along with the rest of the dinner. It was pretty easy too, might be my new fav dinner to cook! Today, Sunday I tended a dive at noon and then dove just for fun, and not for science at 3:30. On that dive I spotted a huge octopus just sitting there (trying to be a sponge, I think) on a coral head. Michel filmed it with his HD underwater video camera, for like 25 minutes, so there should be lots of good footage from that. It is Sunday night dinner tonight…yuck, but then again it could be interesting as we all kind of spoke our minds the past couple nights.

August 13, 2007 Gau, Fiji

Relaxing day today, pretty nice really. It made me enjoy the fact that I’m in Fiji and studying the reefs here, minus all the b.s. on the boat. This morning I worked on inputing Vitareef data into the computer, until all these local kids came by to sell us fruits from the village. It was so nice just to be around kids, laughing and giggling at things while Heather showed them around. There was like 6 of them touring around the ship, we gave them sweets, and they sang for us. It was a really lovely morning really. I did manage to finish the Vitareef data entry too. When the kids were on board, Michel was in town dealing with our forgotten savusavu offering to the chief of the village here. We totally forgot to go into the village and do the offering as we’ve been so wrapped up in science. It’s a big no-no to just help yourself to their land and their waters without the savusavu ceremony. Opps! It worked out though, Michel is a good bull-shitter, and we are officially allowed to be here now.

After the visit from the kids, we really began our day (at about 11! so late for us..). A group of 5 of us did a GPS transect of a large portion of the reef here. GPS transect is towing someone in the water and yelling out changes in reef topography while being towed along the reef track. Someone else in the dinghy is taking GPS waypoints and water depths with every new change mentioned in the reef. Pretty interesting how it all worked out. I enjoyed being towed and saying what I was seeing down there. Crystal clear water and big ridges covered with coral mostly. It’s a fringing reef here so its what you would expect. I wrapped myself up in a fender, used it like an inner tube really, and just got towed along. Trusting Zac as the boat driver was the only sketchy part, as sometimes I had to jump in the dinghy really fast because he got so close to a couple coral heads. I did see lots of giant clams, a big barracuda, and a really big white tip shark (I swear it was bigger than me!). That took a few hours of the day, and then after lunch I tended the first transect dive. It went ok, just pretty boring mooring around for an hour while they did the transect. Hope I get to do one of those dives in the next couple days. Their pretty scientific as I understand it. That’s when there are people gathering fish, invert, and coral ID, and someone is taking pictures along the transect to use on a computer program later to identify the percent live coral cover vs. other substrates. I like getting into the science stuff on board. Makes me feel like I’m back at school again for a bit…well in lab at least. Excellent pizza for dinner and watched The Pianist (like Schlinder’s List) after dinner. Exhausted tonight though. Rachel leaves tomorrow, will see her back in Suva. More science diving tomorrow.

August 14, 2007 Gau, Fiji

Happy Birthday Dad! I know I should have wished you an early birthday in Levuka, but it totally slipped my mind. Hope your doing some jetskiing at the cove today…er um tomorrow really.

Another nice day today, I’m always happier on board when I get to do some diving. I did 2 vitareef dives today. Zac saw 10 nudibranches (colorful sea slugs) on our dive and I didn’t see one! So pissed! I haven’t seen one yet, they’re supposed to be so pretty. We’re getting the science study done slowly but surely. I hope the science study gets done soon and we are able to make it to Namena for a couple days before heading back to Suva.

In the afternoon today, about 12 kids came on board exploring around the ship. They all paddled out on 3 bamboo rafts. The word must have got out that we gave some of their friends a tour of the ship yesterday. I feel bad I’m almost out of the toys Mom gave me to give to the kids. I couldn’t give them anything, b/c I didn’t have enough for everyone. If I can remember, I’ll buy some bags of candy in Suva or something. Speaking of Suva, Rachel left this morning headed back to Suva. She promised she will take us out when we get back. I’d like to see her university and a waterfall nearby it too. Hope that works out. Nothing much new happening on board. I guess we’re all getting along better. A few certain people haven’t changed a bit though…sucks sometimes. Its to be expected though, being with the same people 24/7.

August 15, 2007 Gau, Fiji

This morning I dealt with another rude Heather antic. I was to tend a transect dive first thing in the morning in the wind and rain, I got all suited up in rain gear and was ready to load the boat when…she says, “Oh I think Zac better tend instead because we aren’t going to anchor and better he motor around since the engine has been acting up.” Basically you can’t handle it Tanya, so Zac is going to tend instead. Well don’t assign me to do it in the first place then! Umm and ya like I can’t deal with broken engines! Ha! So I take all my gear off, go downstairs, and she comes down to ask if I wanted to analyze some Vitareef data. I don’t even know what that means, and she has the audacity to come and ask me to do another mindless job after she pretty much told me I couldn’t tend a dive. Pretty ridiculous, so of course I gave her attitude. She left did her dive, blah, blah. I spent the morning working on getting a few fans ready to put up in paradise and filling dive bottles with Fred. Fun…fun. Oh! The fixed compressor is absolutely a piece of cake and so fast compared to the deck compressor. It takes like 5 minutes to fill 2 bottles, so filling bottles isn’t such a chore now, since it takes so little time.

After lunch I went on the last vitareef dive. I tried my hardest to find a nudibranch again, but with no success. Grrr! One of those boys will just have to point one out to me I guess. So only 2 more transect dives tomorrow, and then hopefully we’re off to Namena. I think I’ll be able to do the transect dives and identify invertebrates on those dives, which will be good. The people from the village here really like us. It seems like there is always a group of villagers here selling us something. And we keep buying! Gross taro, breadfruit, too many coconuts, cabbage, payapa, sugarcane, red snapper fillets. I’m really not into taro and breadfruit, I know it’s local and we should eat local, but it’s just not my thing. Oh I also wish we speared fish on board, it doesn’t sound like we do that (or if anyone know how to spear fish); we’re too “green” for that. Ha! I mentioned something the other day about wouldn’t it be great to have fresh fish, and I’ll go down a spear us a big grouper…and my comment was kind of shoed away. Oh well…guess they’re happier buying fresh fish from the locals.

Anyways, Namena should be nice, we should have close to a week there. I guess we really didn’t tap into even the best of the diving there so that’s something to look forward too. On another note, I’ve finished Lost for now (until I see if there is any more in Suva), so I’ve been watching a few movies. The Pianist was good, another movie about the Holocaust. I’ve also watched The Last King of Scotland, which was a pretty crazy movie, not at all what you would think; it left me with a few really disturbing images I’m still trying to get out of my head. Well that’s the latest news from Gau.

August 16, 2007 Gau, Fiji

This morning I woke up to find out that the yellow hard bottom dinghy had broken free in the middle of the night. It wasn’t even too windy, but I guess the bolt on the front of the boat wedged itself out and there was no safety line on the boat, so it just drifted away. Michel and Kitty went out searching in the middle of the night, but with no avail. This morning we had a big talk about what had happened, how we all aren’t alert seamen, blah, blah, blah. It was Clement’s dinghy too, the guy that owns the Infinity. Michel said he wants to have a creative meeting to discuss ways of raising 7 grand. He mentioned that he might have to get a job for 6 months…oh no! Not the real world! Ha! The officers are volunteers just like us, and don’t get an income working with PCRF either. So there has been a change of plans. No trip to Namena anymore, it would just such a rushed trip, and it’s kind of sketchy diving there with only one boat (with an engine that doesn’t get fuel all the time…idles and then stops suddenly). Instead we will move the boat to Somosomo and explore the island of Gau some more. Including a visit to the resort Ty owns that is under construction, and maybe a hike to this village not far away with a hot spring.

After a pretty stressed out and depressing morning, I went on my first transect dive looking for inverts. Its very scientific down there when there is a transect going on. Every diver has a different job to do, and everyone is busily working, trying to stay out of everyone’s way. A transect is where we lay 100 m (I think..) of tape down on the seafloor and record pics, fish, inverts, and corals on the line and 3 m away from the line on both sides. I think I might have mentioned about the transect before. When I surfaced from the dive, Kitty asked if my regulator sounds like dolphins…I said ummm no, that’s weird. Well it turns out there was a pod of about 30 pilot whales right near where we were diving. So crazy! Fred was tending the dinghy on the surface and said it was really cool how close they got to us. After arriving back to ship from the dive, I finished entering the last of the vitareef data into computer, and it’s done finally. I think there is a total of like 3000 coral colonies that we analyzed. After cleanup today, after searching thoroughly I came to the conclusion that my shortie wetsuit I wore the other day was missing. I’ve been really good too with keeping track of all my stuff too, I hardly ever leave clothes on the line, b/c I don’t want them to blow away. Well I mentioned it at the afternoon meeting, and come to find out people are missing a dive computer wrist watch, a swiss army knife, and a watch also. So I’m thinking its not just me being careless, leaving my stuff lying around. There have been lots of visitors to ship in past several days, which kind of concerns me, that someone might have stolen my wetsuit if it was just lying there. Not to worry too much though, I do still have the long skin (not warm…at all), and maybe if Zac is still coming he can bring me my regular long wetsuit from home.

I was on to cook dinner with Carol tonight…and I survived dinner with Carol! Such an accomplishment for me, you don’t even know. So first thing in the galley she says, “Well, I’ll cook the carb and dessert, you can do the fish and the salad.” Of course you have to say yes to Carol, there is no arguing…so I had to scale a whole grouper we bought from that we bought from the locals, after I had just had a nice clean shower. I did it though, and got scales all over me from head to toe. I baked the whole groupers in onions, dill, lemon, and white wine wrapped in foil (like we do on the BBQ) and they were a success! Everyone loved them and the meat just fell right off the bone, they were cooked perfectly. It was a Thursday night dinner so after dinner we had this weird reading to discuss about this guy that likes to pierce himself for outer body experiences with the pain…ya pretty hippy, but what’s new?

August 17, 2007 Move to Somosomo, Gau

This morning was a pretty boring morning trying to keep busy doing little jobs, while almost everyone was out on an immersive media dive with the camera. Glad I wasn’t deck officer today (have to keep the log of the ship’s position and how different things are running on board), the day after the dinghy escaped, as the officers have gotten real uptight about getting the deck checks done and the boat looked after like every second of the day. Well maybe if the captain of the vessel could be aware of his ship, he wouldn’t have to rely on the volunteers so much. He’s still on this kick about it was everyone’s fault that the yellow dinghy is gone. Ya sorry, I’m not in charge, I’m a grunt remember…I do what you ask and if I’m sound asleep I’m not responsible for the yellow boat. Sorry to digress…just voicing my opinion.

To keep busy, James and I identified the inverts from our transect dive together. Perfect person to do that with by the way! Ya right! He bickered with me about everything I saw, like oh you couldn’t have seen that, b/c I didn’t see it. Ya James I know inverts, I just graduated from college with several classes on inverts…duh. Well anyways after that hour, he helped me install fans in paradise…which is fantastic! Ha!

After lunch we ship-shaped the ship to move it 5 miles (which is another one of the ridiculous tasks, I hate). It took all of an hour to move the boat to Somosomo, but all the dive gear was stowed away, the tarps taken down, the dinghy cranked up on deck, all the portholes were locked, etc…We arrived to Somosomo and had to put everything back up again. Such a pain!

A really nice guy that came to the boat the other day, that James met, gave us 5 big mud crabs for free. We also had bought another coral grouper so we had a big seafood feast once we were all settled in our new anchorage. After dinner the boys and I had some wine and attempted hand-lining/fishing off the stern. We didn’t have a bite all night, but it was still fun just to be hanging out.

August 18, 2007 Somosomo, Gau

Woke up and got all ready for acting class but Ty stopped by unexpectedly and I was happy that he was able to change our plans for the day. With him we figured out our schedule for the rest of our time here in Gau, before heading back to Suva in a couple days. Acting class will be tomorrow, and at 11 today we will head off from Somosomo to take the hike to the hot springs. Then Tuesday we will have a party at the resort with Ty and friends, and also on Monday morning I’m scheduled to go with a group and dive Nigalagi Passage off Ty’s boat. Busy few days…it’s good though to be able to go to shore for a while though, after all that science diving. Just a side note about that passage I’m diving soon. I’m pretty nervous as it’s a shark dive (where dive live-aboards visiting usually feed the sharks), and I think they come up to you and stuff. Ya pretty scared, hope I can cling onto someone during that dive. Supposed to be a really nice drift dive though. Ok, back to today. Well all the volunteers (minus James from his bad back today), went into Somosomo to start the hike to the hot springs. We weren’t in the village 5 minutes, and we had a guide (Uni) and Able (from our last visit to Somosomo) came along too. It was an hour and a half to get there and an hour and a half back…of ya hiking. It wasn’t too strenuous, but it was still up and down steep, muddy hills in the rain the whole time. Good to get some serious exercise. We had a few stops where they cut up papayas and coconuts for us to eat and drink, which was nice. During the trip I kept thinking, this is so much better than the tour we did in Ovalatau…and it’s free. These guys are blowing their whole day to take us to these hot springs that are at least 3-5 miles away. The people in Somosomo are so generous and nice. By the time we reached the hot spring, I (along with others from our group) was thinking, “This is it?” Once we got in the water though, the trip was def worth it. It was just a small pool of a hot spring with volcanic stones on the bottom, with the spring slowly bubbling up from underground. It was outside of this village we walked through, and it was so quiet and peaceful as there was only a mom and her 2 young kids besides our group there at the time. I’m not a good judge of this, but the water was about 80 degrees and relatively clear. Just like a hot bath…which has been much needed since I left home. All I needed was a swim up bar with a pina colada, and I could live at that hot spring. Zac remembered to bring shampoo, so we washed our hair. The water left it so silky and smooth.

You would think the hike back would feel shorter, but it didn’t. After I got out of that hot spring all I wanted to do was sleep for hours and hours, so it was hard to push myself to pick it up and make the hike back to Somosomo. We made it though. Ty took us back to the ship, along with some others from the village, a little before sunset. We had a night of kava, storytelling, and songs over and after dinner. Nice evening after a long day of hiking. I’m crashing out early tonight though, I’m beat.

August 19, 2007 Somosomo, Gau

Today was a relaxing Sunday. Nothing much exciting to report. I watched a few good movies through out the day. A group went to church in the morning with Ty, and when he brought our crew back (he was with Able and his son too) they just hung out on the ship all afternoon and stayed for Sunday night dinner. Another guy from the village, Noah came on another boat with his daughter and we all ate and did our speeches and toasts. I’m sure they thought it was weird, but oh well! Noah even stood up and gave a speech when all of us were through, so cute. I talked about the hike yesterday and how much I enjoyed it and they all said thanks (well vinaka..) after my speech. After dinner the kids were dropped back off at the village, and then the guys picked up the a couple of ladies that wanted to fish off the stern. They fished all night! I did my watch at 2 and the men were sound asleep in the main room. They all left at like 7 AM and had caught 3 barracuda and a wahoo. Shark dive tomorrow…kind of nervous.

August 20, 2007 Somosomo, Gau

There was an extended morning meeting today to discuss all the happenings that will be going on in Suva. Sure is a lot of stuff going on, lots of maintenance work really. Right after the meeting Ty brought 5 of us to dive Naigali passage on his boat. It’s about a 15 min boat ride away. Well the pass was nice…not so extraordinary. The current was roaring out of this pass that was really more like a valley that was lined with corals, especially soft corals, on both sides. We went straight down and just hung on to rocks for dear life really. It was way to hard to fight the current so we just hung on and stayed in one place at about 60 ft for 20 min. There were big schools of barracudas, huge goliath groupers, and a few wahoo that swam by, but no sharks. Michel went with the camera and I guess saw loads of sharks, just a little more ahead of the spot we were at. Well most of the group went up as they were out of air pretty quickly. I convinced Kitty that I didn’t want to hold onto this rock for the whole dive, so we drifted with the current (well slowed ourselves with the current) and saw the extent of the pass. Lots of beautiful soft corals that look like small pink, purple, red, and yellow trees everywhere. We did see a small white tip shark at the end of the dive, but that was it. I got so nervous for nothing! On the surface near this pass the waves were so ride-able. They were just peeling over and not even right on the reef. It was a nice break, prob head high waves.

In the afternoon, Heather worked with me on vitareef analysis and point count analysis on the computer. It’s ok work, a little monotonous, but ok. It looks like I will be doing the science data entry and such, while I’m here. It does interest me though, which is good. Well we took a 20 min break to do cleanup, and the computer might have crashed! Ahhh! The problems that are going on, on this ship are crazy! I’ll let you know how it is, but it was making weird beeping noises and def wouldn’t turn on. While I was doing computer stuff, Zac and Michel are getting the boat that stores the sails on deck into operation. It’s a project boat for sure, with fiberglassing, expoxying, and the works that need to be done to get the boat up and running. Open table dinner tonight, with fish tacos. We’ve been eating the barracuda that the guys have been catching off the stern. It’s not too bad when its really fresh, but it just kind of weirds me out to eat barracuda from scares with ciguatera and such.

August 21, 2007 Somosomo, Gau

This morning I had to produce. I woke up at 5:30, yes 5:30 Dad, and made home made baked granola from oats. We had lab at 7:15 and then breakfast at 8:15. After that we had a long acting class and morning meeting, so the morning was over at like 10:30-11, and I was expected to cook lunch and have it ready by 12:30. Ahhh! I managed though, and it turned out to be pretty good. I made pumpkin soup, also from scratch. The key is to cook it and then puree it in the blender so it’s nice and creamy. Yumm, it was so good. After lunch we had another meeting to sort out the party on the island this afternoon/tonight. Well it turned into another big down and out talk from Michel about how tired we all are, and how no one is really enthused to be here. Matt and James were up on the chopping block as neither one of them has been showing up for lab and they always take their sweet time smoking their cigarettes whenever there is a meeting, or anything to do really. Matt straight out said he doesn’t enjoy lab or acting class and doesn’t feel he needs to go. That sure got Michel pissed. It’s not like you won’t go unnoticed if you just skip something like that on board (the ship’s not that big). I spoke up and said that ya I’m tired, this schedule isn’t what I’m used to, I’m still trying to get adjusted to life on board in that respect. Stay up for an hour in the middle of the night (and be expected to fall right back asleep), wake up early, work hard all day, have about an hour nap after lunch, more work and clean up in the afternoon, and sometimes cooking for 10 people in between all that too. Anyways, nothing was really resolved in that meeting, but still it was to good to have some communication.

This afternoon Ty came by to bring us in to the resort for the party there. The resort was sooo nice. Def honeymoon material. It’s not open yet, b/c there’s kind of no water, but it will open up soon hopefully. It’s Ty’s land, but he’s sold it (I think?) to an American and a New Zealander who are building this resort on the property. Right now there are 3 thatched roof, all inclusive bungalows each with a small pool, out door shower, and great view. And there’s also a staff bungalow, 2 open thatched areas near a big infinity pool and bar, a kitchen, and office. The grounds are very lush and manicured well with stone/cement walkways throughout the area. It will really be an ultra luxury setup when it’s finished. We got the tour from Ty as soon as we arrived, and then met up with all the ladies from the village, near the pool and had lots of Fijian food they had prepared for dinner. I was still sketched out about eating all the local food, I just don’t think my stomach can handle it after that one bout of being so sick. I ate a little though, and acted like I really liked it, but it wasn’t too good at all. Taro, mushed taro leave balls, wahoo steaks, some kind of whole fish, ramen with mushed taro leaves underneath, and rice. After we ate, the resort got a call from the police to say…..they found a yellow boat! Our yellow boat it turned out, no engine (kind of to be expected), and it’s on Viti Levu, the island that Suva is on. Such exciting news! I can’t believe it! Michel will offer a reward for the lost engine, but we have a boat anyways. I think we will drive around the island and deal with getting the boat back, b/c we can’t take Infinity into where it is. Back to the party…we were all stoked at the news, and glad to be sharing the news with our Somosomo friends. It really does feel like we come home when we come to Somosomo. Everyone knows your name, even if you’ve never met them before, or if you have and you can’t remember their name. Ty told us today we are like family to him, and he was so happy to see us when we came back. He’s so sweet, like a big papa bear. I was only able to stay at the party until 7, as I had to come back and guard the ship with Agathe and Kitty. They were just starting to play guitar, sing, dance, and drink lots of kava when I left. Should be a late night for those still at the party. It was still fun though when I was there though. I’m going to miss those Somosomo people, they are all so friendly and warm to us. When we’re with them they really just dissipate all the bickering and weird feelings between everyone on the ship right now, which is good…a little Somosomo remedy. Heading back to Suva tomorrow, will arrive the next day at noon probably.

August 22, 2007 Gau to Suva, Viti Levu

This morning I busted my butt to get everything ship shaped to go, while the smokers took 15 min breaks every 5 min, to try to get ready to go on time. Well my efforts were futile as we were ready to leave an hour ahead of schedule, but our passengers hadn’t arrived yet. Yes, passengers. Last night Ty had asked Michel if we could bring a few people from the village over to Suva with us. It turned out to be 4 adults, 3 kids, and loads of luggage. Pretty weird to have kids onboard overnight. They were cute, but sick a lot and just slept most of the time. I let them watch some Finding Nemo on my laptop this morning, and they really liked that. The voyage was okay though. We had to do a big circle in front of Suva in the middle of the night, b/c it was too dark to enter the channel to get in here. On my watch, the 4-8, we brought all the sails down (with the help of the Fijians on board), and anchored in the harbor. Carol was on my watch, along with Matt, and Carol wasn’t that bad actually. She cooked dinner and breakfast, instead of either of us having to do it; so Matt and I just kind of hung out and stayed out of her way. We snagged a small mahi mahi, with Matt reeling it in, and I went down to wake up Michel so he could gaft it. Well I guess Michel gafted the line and we lost dinner! Idiot! He was half asleep though. There was another hit on the line during our 4-8 afternoon watch, around sunset, and Matt and I sprung for the line and didn’t bother to wake Michel. Ha! I reeled a big mahi mahi in, and Matt gafted it. It was about 30 lbs, and 3 ½ ft. Meaty guy too! So that was exciting on our watch. Good fresh fish lunches and dinners for a few days.

In Suva I have a whole list of things I want to get done in probably one afternoon and one night trip into town. Grrr! Wish I could just get off the ship more and take a break from everyone and everything. We are hosting all these people from USP for the day tomorrow, and will pick up anchor and motor out away from Suva to be able to jump in the water when they’re on board. Slightly ridic if you ask me. Way too much work…we just got all set in at the anchorage today. Well anyways, that’s tomorrow and the next week we are here, there are all these crews going on to get everything in order for the voyage to Vanuatu (700 miles). Oh on another note, the computer did crash, the temperature gauge with the fan or something, but we were able to get everything off the hard drive, which was good. Hope I get all my stuff and more done in Suva! Oh and two newbies are coming on board here, along with Ibis coming back on.

August 23, 2007 Suva

We arrived today and I didn’t even get a chance to go into town at all! Being stuck on the boat, “on watch” sucks. A group of people had to go in to make travel arrangements online that needed to get started with that early, so they had first priority. Just slept most of the morning, catching up on sleep from being on the 4-8 watch; and then I watched a couple movies and read my book in the afternoon. Gave up on Michener, Tales of the South Pacific for a while, just too much war talk that I can really get into, and I’m trying to slowly read a really good Carl Hiassen book, Stormy Weather. I only brought one of his books, and I just love his style of writing and read his books so fast. Tomorrow we are hosting people from the Oceania Center on board and we’re moving the ship out of the harbor and sailing off the coast…fun, fun, fun as we just set up everything today.

August 24, 2007 Suva

To tell you the truth, I was really not looking forward to having the artists, painters, and musicians from the Oceania Center at USP come on board today. It was going to be so much work just to day-sail outside of Suva harbor with these people. Turns out the 30 guests we had on board were awesome and all so interesting, and all younger, 20s to 30s. I thought they were all going to be professors or something. I managed just to get engrossed in listening to the music they were playing (with guitar, lolly= small hollow drum, and large drum), giving tours, helping in the kitchen, and just mingling with our guests. It was great that I got out of raising and lowering the anchor, and raising and lowering the sails. It was pretty rough for everyone offshore, and most fell asleep from being sea sick, but the band kept playing music. Not really a band so much, it was just all the musicians from the center sitting on the floor in the main room, and singing and playing all kinds of songs…Bob Marley, lots of old American love songs, and of course some great Fijian songs. Even if some of them didn’t have an instrument, they would rub their knuckles into their other hand to keep time with the music. Once we got back into Suva harbor, we had a feast of a lunch with chicken curry and rice that they brought, and spaghetti and meat sauce that we made. After lunch, the dancers from the Oceania Center did 4 really good dances for us with recorded music from the musicians. Both the guys and the girls move just like Hawaiian dancers, when they swing their hips so much, but don’t move their upper body. Like the hula. The guy dancers were so flamboyantly gay! There was 4 of them, and in one dance they had to dance like with the girls, kind of sexy, and all the musicians were sitting there cracking up laughing at the guys definitely acting! Ha! The gay guys were really good dancers, and def appreciated being on board. They are having performances at USP next wed, thurs, and fri hopefully all of us can make it to one of those. I’d love to get a CD of the musicians when I’m at USP too.

We did 3 dances/songs (I did the Babanga one again, the dance with the guys) and then slowly we took 2 boat loads of people back. When the boat came back, the musicians had moved to the stern and were all set up drinking kava and singing again. Oh I forgot to mention, Udi, one of the Somosomo villagers we took over, is still here and he was mixing and drinking kava all day long with the musicians, even when we were sailing. He was really enjoying himself, as he knew most of the songs they were singing. Well the group on the stern stayed all night. I was up for watch at 2:30 and some had left, but there was 6 guys crashed out on the floor in the main room. This morning, it’s 8 AM on Saturday and they are already playing A La Bamba! Too funny! Hope I get to go into town today and get some of my stuff done. I told all the Oceania Center people that we were going to be at this bar Traps with Rachel from the USP too, at around 11 Sat night, so hopefully we’ll get a crowd there. I called Rachel from one of their phones and she said she’ll meet up at the yacht club at 6 tomorrow to have some dinner before (maybe sushi!) going out to Traps. Should be fun!